I think that’s a really interesting idea. “Who is it for us to sort of say if play to earn
is right or wrong? You know, when we want to protect games as entertainment – games as entertainment is a real privilege to have. What about where games go in terms of providing people a living? So all of those challenge the industry in lots of really unique ways. We don’t have the answers, but I think what we can do is to try and provide a space for those conversations to happen, and for us to be looking down the road to help support or to guide businesses who want to go into that kind of territory.” Of course, some of these territories are more
fraught than others. The rising popularity of NFTs has been particularly controversial, given their often enormous environmental impact. It’s important to remember that, whatever direction the industry moves in, it doesn’t forget its responsibilities or the harm it could cause. “We have made a commitment as a trade body,
but also as an industry, to the climate agenda. Playing for the Planet is a really important alliance. And we have a really important role to play as an industry, in that we must balance these kinds of technological advances and these kinds of technologies with how we’re considering our practises and the impact on not just the environment, but on society as a whole. “I’m also very keen that the games industry at
the very least really leads on making sure that any efforts to build the metaverse, however you want to consider that, is built in a way that has inclusivity at its heart and accessibility at its heart, and that is designed in a way that is protecting people. We’ve already engaged a lot with the ICO in terms of the Children’s Code, which really is about thinking about privacy by design, and protections that we, as an industry, take really seriously. “Retrofitting considerations of accessibility or
inclusion or safety controls, and that kind of thing is much more difficult than actually designing these things with those principles at its heart. So I think we have, as an industry, a role to play in continuing to be responsible and showing people how to be responsible, whether it be in terms of our climate impact, or in terms of our social impacts, and in terms of accessibility and inclusion.”
CONCERNING CONSOLIDATION Now for context, my chat with Twist took place just a few days before Microsoft’s eye-watering $68.7bn
14 | MCV/DEVELOP February 2022
acquisition of Activision Blizzard. And while that bomb had yet to hit, the surge of acquistions in recent years was still hard to ignore. After all, the previously mentioned Mediatonic has gone from a small British studio to being owned by Epic Games. Is Twist concerned about the industry’s trend toward consolidation? “I think it’s something that we need to look at.
Again, our job is to keep the UK competitive and to continue to make sure that the ecosystem is healthy. Which is why we are working with Creative England on the Creative Scale Up programme, why we continue to lobby for further support and expansion of the UK Games Fund for those early stage companies and prototypes – which was announced in the budget, which was fantastic to see. And it’s why we’re asking the government for an uplift in the video games tax credit that companies receive, because all of those measures are important. “But as well as that, it’s about the skills and talent
development. It is not just early stage businesses who need that support in order to understand how they build a business plan, how they actually reach scale. They need the talent, and to be able to hire people to help them grow, they need the incentives to be able to take those risks. So for us, it is something that we’re very aware of, that consolidation could be a concern. “But I think with more capital in those
companies, and more security for studios, we’re in a completely different place than where we were in the 90s and 2000s. I think that is very, very positive for the industry. But at the same time, it needs to be balanced out with, ‘right, where’s the next generation coming from? How are we going to continue to create this ecosystem to make sure that we’re getting these companies that are up and coming and diversifying our ecosystem?’” That focus on the next generation is seen in
Ukie’s continued work in the education sector, as the trade body works to help to not only ensure the industry has the talent it needs going forward, but that a more diverse set of people have access to well-paying jobs. “It’s why we really value the relationship within
Into Games that we have. They’re doing some amazing work. Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen so many more organisations set up to specifically help with careers, whether that be the National Videogame Museum and the education outreach and work that they do, to a lot of the mentoring
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